In optical WDM communications networks or systems it has been proposed to identify each of a plurality of optical signals or channels, each at an individual optical wavelength, with a respective relatively low frequency dither tone with which the intensity or amplitude of the respective optical signal is modulated. For example, in a WDM network in which optical signals are each modulated with data at a high bit rate, for example 2.5 Gb/s or more, each optical signal may also be modulated with a respective dither tone in a relatively low frequency range, for example about 10 kHz to about 100 kHz or more. The dither tone modulation can be provided with a specific modulation depth, thereby not only providing channel identification but also power level information for the optical signal, thereby to facilitate functions such as performance monitoring and fault management in the network.
Examples of such proposals are disclosed in Hill et al., “A Transport Network Layer Based On Optical Network Elements”, IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, Volume 11, No. 5/6, pages 667-679, May/June 1993, and in Roberts U.S. Pat. No. 5,513,029, issued Apr. 30, 1996 and entitled “Method And Apparatus For Monitoring Performance Of Optical Transmission Systems”.
Heismann et al., “Signal Tracking And Performance Monitoring In Multi-Wavelength Optical Networks”, 22nd European Conference on Optical Communication—ECOC'96, pages 3.47 to 3.50, 1996 also discloses such a proposal in which a pilot tone which acts like a dither tone can further be modulated using frequency-shift keying (FSK) with an additional digital signal providing digital information, such as optical routing information. For example, this article discloses FSK modulation of tones at 10 kHz and 12 kHz each with ±500 Hz frequency excursions in accordance with respective 100 b/s digital signals.
While such proposals provide the advantage that optical channels can be identified and their power levels monitored without detection and demodulation of the optical channel itself and without serious adverse effects on the optical channels, they fail to meet increasing requirements of WDM networks in several respects.
More particularly, such proposals provide a limited number of distinguishable dither tones, each of which identifies a respective optical channel so that the WDM network can have only a similarly limited number of optical channels. In addition, detection of such tones can be very difficult. For example, an optical fiber in a WDM network may carry up to 32 optical channels within a wide optical dynamic range of for example 30 dB (a dynamic range of 60 dB for the corresponding electrical signals) or more. Detection of a dither tone for an optical channel at the lower end of this dynamic range is very difficult in the presence of possibly many other optical channels higher in this dynamic range, because the latter constitute noise for the detection process.
Further, dither tone detection can be complicated by the presence of other interference, such as interference tones that occur with a frequency spacing of about 8 kHz in the case of SONET (synchronous optical network) communications. Furthermore, many optical networks carry non-SONET (non-Synchronous Optical Network) signals, such as Gigabit Ethernet and proprietary signals that have interference tones with unknown or changing frequencies. Such tones can cause interference and this also complicates dither tone detection.
A need therefore exists for an improved method of and apparatus for channel identification which can facilitate robust detection of dither tones for identification of larger numbers of channels in a communications network, in particular an optical WDM network.